It's not fair...

...that weddings typically only last 4 to 6 hours! Truly not enough time for a bride and groom to spend time with their 190 guests (in our case).

Briefly trying to mingle with *everyone* at the cocktail hour

My friend Shelley who I basically only got to say good bye to at the end of the night :(

...that even the best laid plans and attention to detail end up somehow falling apart when you are all caught up in the moment of everything going on around you.

...that the animals didn't come out while we were down by their cages to take pictures with us in front of them.

Although my cousin snapped this one while she was walking around before the wedding

By Amber Marquez

...that we (or I should say our photographer) totally forgot to go get pics by the fish pond, llamas, orange orchard, old antique car, barn silo, zebras, fountains, fountain pool, bridges and bird cages...oh, and didn't get any twilight or night time shots with pretty soft lights glowing**

...that I was too wrapped up in everything going on to feel relaxed enough to have some different shots with Mr Fix It like sexy, romantic, laughing type shots.

...that I felt like I barely got to see or spend much time laughing with my bridesmaids before the wedding.

Yeah, that's me in the back getting ready while they are all hanging out

Photo by Amber Marquez

...that I barely had enough time to get into the photobooth and when I did I couldn't think straight to come up with crazier, funnier poses!

Cheesy Photobooths

...that I totally forgot about the chocolate fountain until the end of the night when almost all the guests were gone and I stood there by myself scarfing down strawberries and blue chocolate.

...that I never really felt like I was 'in the moment' throughout any part of the day.

...that I was feeling like I was going to pass out through half of the ceremony because my dress was strangling me...and that I didn't feel like wearing my dress through more of the reception because it was too damn heavy!

By Amber Marquez

...that I barely danced with any of our guests...though when I did, it was sure fun!

...that I didn't even get to see the escort cards, the gift table, the memorial table and half the other little details that were set up before all the guests arrived.

...that either the caterer forgot the right linen for our memorial table or someone messed up and didn't read the design layout correctly so it was in a lame cream linen cloth instead of a cranberry satin cloth (I know that's trivial, but it still bothered me).

...that Mr Fix It and I (nor our photographer - blech!) thought to put our wedding rings on for all of our photos before the ceremony so they are not in the pictures we have of us.

Notice - no  rings on either of our hands!!!

...that my officiant didn't show up until almost an hour into our rehearsal so we didn't get to plan out and walk through a lot of things that I would have done differently had I been able to see them in the rehearsal.  Like I wouldn't have staggered our bridal party on the stairs of the altar and I would have realized that me and my girls basically sprinted down the aisle!  :(

I wasn't feeling this staggered look at all!  You can't even see my sister who had to stand

behind the tulip arrangement and pillar on the top of the stairs. 

...that after it is all said and done, I totally want to do it all again!  :)  Can you say '5 year anniversary vow renewal' anyone?

** Though we did get a lot of shots at these locations in our post wedding shoot this week! :)

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography

Wed Recap: Why teenagers are annoying

I have mentioned many times how I have a 15 year old daughter from a previous relationship.  Well, today, she is taking her driver's permit test!  Pray for me! 

She and Mr Fix It have been a part of each other's lives since she was 9 years old.  It's kind of crazy...but they love each other and get along great.  Too great...in fact, they sometimes annoy me.  And since Mr Fix It is truly still a big kid himself, the two of them together usually causes me grief.

That said, we definitely wanted to include Little Miss in our wedding ceremony and our vows. 

As you may remember in this post, Mr Fix It made a vow to be a patient and caring step-father to Little Miss.  Well, we wanted her to take some responsibility in our newly formed family as well. 

And so we created a special little part of the ceremony in which she stepped forward and the pastor asked her a brief question about whether she will love and support the two of us in our marriage.  She then was to respond with "I will" after which, Mr Fix It was to place a ring on her finger as well...sort of a little promise ring uniting our entire family. 

Of course, we didn't run through this at the rehearsal and so no one knew what the heck was going on. It's kind of silly and we laughed our way through most of it.  Little Miss wasn't sure where to stand or how to walk around me to join us.  In addition, as you'll see, she totally held true to herself as me and Mr Fix It did with her little 'unplanned' response.  Check it:

I could have killed her!  Little twerp.  Teenagers are so cocky and annoying...they just can't hold to traditions and rules of any type.  Oh well...everyone laughed, and I did, too at the time, but afterwards I told her she was a pain! 

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: You may now claim your bride with a kiss!

This ceremony recap speaks for itself.  There's not much I need to write to go along with these photos and video other than to tell you that like with everything else surrounding our wedding, I did not want the traditional verbage used to end our ceremony. 

As our pastor made everyone aware in this post, I wrote out our ceremony script for him with key bible verses, vows, and ideas to share during his message.  Near the end of the wedding planning process, I told him that he didn't need to stick to the script verbatim...except for where I highlighted certain words and portions of the script that were absolutely imperative to have Pastor Lyle say exactly as I wrote them out.  One of those few things that I insisted be performed exactly as I wanted was the final comment of the ceremony where the officiant typically says "You may now kiss your bride!" 

I wanted this to be a bit untraditional, so as you'll see in the video, I came up with a bit of a unique way for Pastor L to direct Mr Fix It for the kiss:

And ladies, let me tell you yet again why I absolutely implore you to have some type of video at your wedding....the day after the wedding, I could not remember one thing about our first kiss!!!  Nothing!  I didn't even really remember kissing my groom at all at the end of the ceremony.  But thankfully there was video to prove we did in fact kiss.   And though the photos are great, they just can't seem to convey the length, type and memory of the kiss the way the video can.  :)

Here's a few more pics I love of our first kiss as husband and wife:

Share time:  Was there anything that may have seemed insignificant or normal during your ceremony or reception that you wanted to slightly tweak to make it different from a traditional wedding event?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP:  Be sure to practice the recessional during your rehearsal as well as the processional.  We didn't really practice this at our rehearsal like we should have and so the wedding party didn't realize that they were supposed to wait until me and my groom got to the very end of the aisle before they started walking down.  Then each of the couples immediately started following each other back down the aisle rather quickly which didn't allow the photographer a chance to get a good shot of each couple walking down.  It's better to have a mark (the middle of the aisle, end of the aisle, etc) that you direct each couple to start their walk at once the couple in front of them hits that mark.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: Oh, let me just do that for you!

Mr Fix It and I are control freaks.  Shocking, I know, right?  I mean what would ever make you think that I think I can do it all?  As my sister, MOH J so brilliantly put it in her toast at our reception, neither Mr Fix It nor I are perfect...and that *is* in fact hard for both of us to hear.

We are both perfectionists and though I am a little more humble in realizing that I don't 'know it all,' Mr Fix It believes he is a contractor, electrician, plumber, lawyer, doctor, mechanic, teacher, gardener, etc.  Now granted, he does in fact know a lot about a lot of those things, but he definitely can't do it all.  Though he'd like to think he could.

Anyway, our personalities once again flared up during our ceremony when it came time to partake in the Unity Cross.  I wanted to incorporate something that we could keep as a memorable item to display in our home from our ceremony.  A lot of people will participate in the lighting of a unity candle or in a sand pouring ceremony and then keep the vase in their home.  I wasn't super excited about either of those ideas.  So I was super thrilled when I found the Unity Cross on the GetMarried.com web site. 

It's not cheap at $99 but my small group of girls that I lead in a bible study asked if there was anything special they could all pitch in to get me for my shower and I instantly thought of this cross.  So it not only was a great keepsake from our ceremony, but it also was a special gift from some very important friends in my life.

Basically, the cross is put together by the bride and groom during the ceremony to represent the uniting of the two different beings (man and woman) on the foundation of our faith. 

I loved the symbolism of this.  Although I wish the pastor would have spent a little more time and thought on how he explained this to our guests as part of the ceremony.  It comes with a great little story about how the man's cross is strong and sturdy and yet somewhat empty inside.  And the woman's cross is intricate, beautiful and perfectly suited to fill the man's cross.  But instead he described the woman's cross as 'curvy'.  Really?  Whatever, Pastor Lyle is awesome at rolling with it and I love how he made everyone laugh with his comment about me breaking a nail.  It was still a cool idea.  However, when it came time to put together the cross, well, let's just say that I commented to Mr Fix It that we probably should have practiced putting it together before the actual ceremony which we in fact, did *NOT* do as you'll see in the clip:

Did you listen carefully to how Mr Fix It and I make a perverted comment about 'finding the hole?'  Yeah, not one of my finer moments...I was obviously nervous.  :)

Starts off great working together.

Mr Fix It is having some problems.

And I try to take over...unsuccessfully.

Share time:  Did you have any little mishaps that occurred during your wedding?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP:  While it's not necessary to practice every single thing that you will be doing at your ceremony or reception, it is a good idea to at least talk about how you'll do certain things.  We should have definitely practiced putting together the cross before the ceremony.  And though you can't do that with a sand pouring, you can at least remind each other that you want to pour the sand slowly so it mixes together well.  My sister and her hubby didn't do this and she poured her sand into the vase super fast while her groom took his time.  It didn't merge quite as well as they wanted though it was a funny story.  Remember to try on your rings before the big day to make sure they fit okay. 

Unless otherwise noted, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: The planner and the wing-it guy

I'm still following up with ceremony recaps - but there's only a few more to go.  However, today is again, one that is sort of a favorite...because it is the only time during our ceremony that I actually got choked up (though briefly). 

In my post last week about our pastor talking about both me and Mr Fix It and why he 'likes us,' he mentioned that I am a planner and that Mr Fix It is a surfer.  Well, in today's post, I am sharing with you our personally written messages to each other. 

And as you'll see in the video, Mr Fix It just 'wings it' and didn't have anything specific prepared or written down.  This is exactly why I didn't involve him in the writing of the traditional vows I shared last week, because he really just waits until he is in the moment to make decisions and share thoughts.  :)

The funny thing is, me being the planner, I knew one day Mr Fix It and I would get married.  And so early on in our six year relationship, I started keeping a journal that every once in a very great while, I would write a note or reminder about something he did or said or something I thought about him.  Basically, as soon as we got engaged, I went back through those old journal entries to gain inspiration and then wrote out this letter to Mr Fix It.  It was written probably a good 9 to 12 months before our wedding and I didn't look at it again until it was time to print it out when we were going over the ceremony with our pastor.  So yes, it was well planned in advance - at least mine was.

So here it is, the video of our messages to each other.

I just absolutely love how our pastor knew how to put us at ease and lighten a mood with a simple statement like when he tells Mr Fix It 'he's not going to top' my message. :)

Share Time:  Did/Will you include a personally written note or message to each other in addition to the vows you recite?  Or will you maybe write your vows as the written notes to one another?  How much time did you put into writing them out?  Did you wait until the last minute or have them prepared very early on?

Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills
Unless otherwise indicated, photos by Robert Mullins

Wed Recap: War wounds at our wedding (the ring exchange)

This is not your boring old ring exchange part of the ceremony recap.  Oh no, I let my pride get the best of me during our ring exchange and ended up with the war wound to prove how stupid I was for being so vain and worried about how something would look to our guests in the middle of our ceremony.

See, it starts off all normal.  Pastor Lyle is taking the rings from Best Man K...

Mr Fix It begins to place the ring on my hand.

This is kind of pretty, isn't it?

But what's this?  Why is the bride pushing the ring on her finger herself?  Isn't that the groom's job?

Oh, this is a FANTASTIC shot of the bride during the ring exchange.  Don't you just love it?  I mean, seriously, what the heck was I doing?  It is obvious this ring does *not* want to get on my finger!

But alas, here's another horrible shot of me with my eyes closed where I am showing the guests that in fact, I was going to *MAKE* this ring fit even if it cost me a little blood!  Which by the way, it did!

You see, there's a little something special about my ring.  It was a pain in the butt to get sized!  We bought it at the LA jewelry market and I didn't have it sized for a very long time.  Oh yeah, nevermind that it was too big for me.  I mean it didn't fall off or anything but it was not secure by any means.  We didn't want to have it sized down because the setting was such that the 28 princess cut diamonds in their invisible setting along side the center stone could have been ruined or fallen out by altering the shape of the ring.  So we just left it.

But I knew that wouldn't last, so I eventually found a friend's jeweler who said we could 'add' a round bump arch type of thing on the inside of my ring on the bottom to make it fit better.  And when we added that extra white gold to the ring, it did in fact fit better.  In fact, too good...it was now too tight.  I had him shave off some of the extra gold we added and it seemed to be okay.  I have large knuckles and they kept insisting that if they made it any bigger it would slip around on my finger once it got past my knuckle.  So he told me if I needed to, just use some extra cold water and dish soap to slide the ring on and off.  Hey, that idea worked great!  I did this every morning and evening when I would take my ring on and off.

So come wedding day I had a plan.  I told my coordinator and pastor that I needed either a glass of ice water or a little bottle of dish soap or hand sanitizer at the table where we would take communion just before our ring exchange.  This way I could easily place some of the soap on my finger right after we took communion before we went back to our places on the altar.  Well, instead, my coordinator decided to just give the bottle of soap to my pastor to keep in his pocket so he could hand it to me if I needed it.  Great idea.  But I didn't want to put the stuff on my finger in front of all of our guests...I was trying to be covert about it.  So when it wasn't there at the communion table and we went back to do the ring exchange, well, I'll let you watch the video to see what happened next.

Can you believe that? I was totally bleeding from trying to shove and force the ring over my knuckle!  Mr Fix It's ring went on just fine. But mine, not so much. The rest of the ceremony Mr Fix It kept trying to hold my hands and I just remember that I kept pulling my left hand away from him trying not to get blood on my dress, or the ribbon on my flowers or on Mr Fix It.  As you can see in the video, at one point, I even turned my back to the guests and tried to suck the blood off of my finger!  Disgusting...but you do what you gotta do.  Nobody at the wedding, not one person noticed what the heck had happened or that I had totally cut myself on my ring finger and was then wearing one of our little pink Hugs and Kisses from the New Mr & Mrs band-aids that I had gifted our wedding party.  Guess they came in handy after all :)

The part in the video where you see my back turned to the guests and I'm talking to my sister?  Well, I held my hand out to show her the bloody mess on my knuckles.  She must have been out of it, too because she looked at my hand and said "Yeah, pretty."  Like she thought I was trying to show her the ring!  Then I glanced at my knuckle in an effort to tell her to look again and she saw the blood and her eyes got all wide with this "What am I supposed to do look?"  So silly.

Here's a couple pics of when I put Mr Fix It's ring on him:

But now, thanks to the little fiasco of me not being able to get my ring on, Mr Fix It makes a face wondering if we will have the same problem and *HIS* ring won't fit either!

And here's a shot of me with my best friend from high school immediately after our ceremony when I first came up for cocktails.  She was the only person the entire night who asked to look at my ring.  Very strange I thought but whatever. 

By the time I changed for our grand entrance, I was able to take the band aid off. But as you can see in this lovely photo from our first dance, I did have some minor cuts and scrapes :)

All photos by Robert Mullins Photography
All raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: I like these people!

This has been a busy week. Which is strange since I've been rather lonely the past several weeks. Have I mentioned that Mr Fix It went up north for 3 weeks to work on his parent's home? He left his newlywed wife all alone in a new house. Turns out, my daughter, Little Miss has also been gone spending a lot of time with her dad since he had some time off and she had practices going on down at his house. Easier commute.

But since I was surprised at 4 am yesterday morning by my sweet husband kissing me and coming home 2 days earlier than expected, I plan on keeping today's post a little short so I don't have to be at the computer too long.  I did put together this little video clip which was one of my very favorite parts of our ceremony (Do I say that a lot? Are they all my favorites?).

Anyway, this was a little tidbit that our pastor shared about how he knows us and it gives you some great insight into who we are as individuals. I absolutely had no idea he was going to share the little detail he did near the end of the clip about my 'planning skills.' Enjoy!

Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills

Wed Recap: What are we really here for?

Okay, okay.  So the flowers were amazing (post to follow).

The favors were all a huge hit with the guests.  The video made everyone laugh and was executed just as I had hoped for. 

Photo by Yan Freedline

The food was good.  The guests kept the dance floor alive and we heard nothing but compliments and thank you's for how amazing the wedding was and how much fun everyone had.  But what was the real reason we were supposed to be there all about?  Wasn't this whole day, this whole event really about the 30 minutes that we spent standing on an altar holding hands with our closest family and friends flanked on either side of us or lovingly gazing upon us with their approval?

Ah yes, the ceremony is indeed what this day was about.  For it was Mr Fix It's desire to make me his wife and love me forever that brought us to this point.  It was the holy desire of our Creator that we live together under an eternal vow of monogamy and respect and hard work and commitment that brought us to this mutual decision to become husband and wife. 

Photo by Yan Freedline

And so the next several recaps I give you will be all about our ceremony.  I promise they won't be mundane...because our ceremony was pretty funny at some points.  I already shared about our ring bearer carrying the sign that said "Run, John, Run" last week.  And when I finally made it to the top of the stairs on the altar I was anything but timid and shy and 'proper.'  I interrupted our officiant, my old high school pastor, Lyle right before he could really even say anything.

And Lyle did a wonderful job of making our ceremony very personal and unique to us.  Unfortunately, I did not remember any of it!  I swear!  The next days and weeks on our honeymoon were a blur to me when I tried to remember what was said and done at our ceremony.  So thank goodness we have the video!  Because as fabulous as the photos are to look at, they don't remind you of what your first kiss was really like or how long it lasted.  They don't remind you of how you threatened the guests who RSVP'd and then didn't show up on the wedding day like I did :)  They certainly won't help translate how you tried to show your groom how to put together your unity cross when he couldn't make it work.  Oh yes, our ceremony was definitely us to a tee.  Right down to the random conversations we had with each other while the soloist was singing and the way we interacted as we walked out of the ceremony into our private room. 

So stay tuned because I have some of my favorite little posts this week filled with strange and fun videos and photos.  For today, I'll share the very beginning of our ceremony with a few pieced together clips of our first words to each other at the end of the aisle and our pastor's introduction:

Yes, I wanted to take it all in for sure.  So I tried to turn around and look out at everyone who was there...even if for just a brief moment.  I mean, all of my bridesmaids and family and friends had been mingling together before the ceremony began.  I was the only one who didn't get to greet them or say hi.  So I tried to scan their faces.  You can see here that I waved at a few of them.  I specifically remember my friend, Kristin waving back at me.

And I have to admit, I really didn't like how the bridesmaids were staggered on the altar stairs...I wish I would have looked at that better during our rehearsal and told my coordinator I wanted them in a straight line as I had originally intended.  But I just wasn't thinking straight.  I really was not myself for my own wedding day as you'll see.  You'll notice in this little video clip during our getting ready time that I had truly 'checked out' at different points during the day:

But oh well.  It is what it is.  And what it was, was a wonderful day and a great ceremony thanks to my hubby and our pastor, Lyle. 

Unless otherwise indicated, all photos by Robert Mullins Photography
Raw video footage courtesy of Video Keepsakes of Beverly Hills